harsh reality

Welcome to the community! :D Since you are a member,someone will contact you soon, for your free credit consultation. They will discuss your debt,income,collections,etc., with you. They will give you options,from which you can choose. Consolidation is a great benefit,it offers one monthly payment and lower interest. Keep us posted and good luck-you aren't alone...Karen

Simple advice - You did some mistakes in the past. You didn't have money to pay your bills and used your credit cards for paying off the loans. Needless to say, you fall short of money when it was the time to pay off the credit card debts. The creditors were not receiving money from you and as a result, they charged high interest rates making the situation completely difficult. My advice to you and others who are facing financial difficulties is that you should not go for new credit when you are already falling short of money when it has to be paid back. Creditors are not doing any welfare to anyone. They will charge for their services. If you are not able to return them for what they obliged you with, the charges will keep adding further.

It's time now you need to think positive and solve this problem for ever. It's good that you are getting the settlement offers. Propose your payment plans to them and clear off the debts. Take some professional help if you are not sure about how to bag the deal to your favor.

credit card debt is my specialty, since I collect on those. You have options even if you feel like you don't.

Are these credit cards charged off? Are you currently employed? Have you ever settled any accounts before?

Settlements, if this is the way you choose to go:
A first settlement, even if the card is charge off or not, can cost you up to 150 credit points. If it's not your first them this is the way you are going to want to go because after your first settlement it doesn't have that big of an impact. Depending on how old the card is, lets say over a year, you can send a proposal to the collection agency at 50-60% and they will most likely accept it so be prepared to have funds on hand if they accept your proposal. Over two years you can probably get by with 30-40%. These proposals need to be done by letter only, it wil have the biggest impact rather than letting a collector talking you into a higher settlement.

Payment proposals if this is the way you choose to go:
Sit down, gather all of your bills. Find out what you can afford and what you can. Keep in mind you want these things paid off as quicklly as possible but without starving yourself. It might steach you for a while but the end result will be worth it when you get these babies paid off.

As for funds. Are you currently employed? If so see f your employer will buy back your vacation time. Cut off your cell phone for a few months if your contract allows, that can sometimes lead up to an extra 50-70 dollars a month. Do you have a 401k? Life insurance, you can smetimes cash in a policy early depending on how lon you have had it. Relatives can either cosign a loan or outright loan you money and act as a creditor. How long have you been with your bank? Do you own a home that has equity or can you refinance your mortage? you can also defer a home payment. Have a garage sale of sell things on EBay or go sell things at a pawn shop you have no use for. Can you defer an auto payment? Do you have any credit card stil in good standing, you can get a cash advance or even defer a payment to a credit card as well.

There are other avenues for sources of funds I just can't think of them off the top of my head right now.